Reviews

Saturday, November 14, 2015

So another month rolls by and the Kindle Unlimited payout for authors drops again.

August - $0.00513992 per page read

September - $0.00506979 per page read

October - $0.0048099 per page read

Under the 'Kindle Unlimited mark 2', Amazon having changed its payout regime to pay-per-pages read a few months ago, it seems that past performance is indeed a guide to the future. Slow erosion of values. Judging by the noise out there in author forums you'd be justified in thinking that yet another round of authorial head-scratching is underway.

The question is, how does this make commercial sense? If Amazon wants to build a subscription-based ebook borrowing programme, they require not only customer loyalty, but author loyalty. Ah yes, profit, you say. There are plenty of prophets (profits?) of doom out there. The pricing war with the Big 5 publishing houses grinds on, sales of eBooks are dropping (invisible to me) and Indies all over are making hay, grabbing an increasingly large slice of the market.

For a viewpoint on borrowing programmes 'killing' single eBook sales, see the Smashwords Blog (so basically, if you use KDP Select, you are supping with the devil. Lots of good discussion though) If you think book sales are shrinking, the excellent Author Earnings Report is a great place to start.